Glory to God For All Things

In a world driven by information, it is more than a little easy to mistake knowing something as important and good in and of itself. As such, the acquisition of spiritual information is something of a going industry. In a Russian novel written back in the 90’s, a woman intellectual encounters a monk who is restoring an ancient monastery in the Republic of Georgia. During a conversation, she brings up a quote from St. Maximus. The monk is startled and says, “You’ve read St. Maximos? How will you ever be saved?” He went on to tell her that she should…

Among the most powerful meditations on Pascha are the writings of Melito of Sardis (ca. 190 AD). His homily, On Pascha, is both a work of genius as poetry and a powerful work of theology. Its subject is the Lord’s Pascha – particularly as an interpretation of the Old Testament. It is a common example of early Church thought on Scripture and the Lord’s Pascha. I offer a short verse, a meditation reflecting on the first-born of Egypt, who die in the Old Testament Pascha. He speaks of the darkness of death, and the grasping of Hades: If anyone grasped…

“If you then be risen with Christ…” With these words, St. Paul introduces an encouragement to his fellow Christians: “If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.” (Colossians 3:1–4) All that Christ has accomplished, He accomplished with us. It strikes me as important that, in the…

Christmas and Easter are often difficult days for those who do not believe in God. Christians are more public about their faith than at other times of the year and this brings with it an annoyance. Christmas bespeaks the birth of God as a human being. Easter bespeaks a resurrection from the dead. For those who do not believe, such miracles, spoken of so glowingly and with such assurance by Christians, only increases the rub of the whole thing. Thoughts of “how can people be so gullible?” or any number of failings of Christians easily come to mind. The more…

I recall the first time the phrase, “On the night in which He was betrayed,” struck my heart. I was attending the evening service of Maundy Thursday at an Episcopal parish when I was a student in college. There was communion, followed by the “stripping of the altar” that symbolized the arrest and scourging of Christ. But the phrase, “On the night in which He was betrayed,” haunted me throughout the rest of the night. (We joined friends that evening for a meal, but I found myself so captivated by the reality of that phrase that I was, doubtless, bad…

The notion of the “Scriptures” has undergone radical changes across the centuries. Today, we picture them as a single book, the Bible. Indeed, we picture that book as private property, perhaps a personal guide for all things spiritual. Even when we hear its words being quoted in public or in Church gatherings, we imagine the readings as something bound-up in this private mode. More than that, the text of the Scriptures is frequently reduced to ideas, as propositions to be weighed and considered. All of this is largely foreign to the Scriptures in their original form. The Scriptures are “Scripture,”…

There is something strangely quiet about the work of salvation. I can think of few things quieter than the exchange between the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary. The entire cosmos was undergoing a radical transformation (God becoming man) while the entire interchange might have been whispered. No one noticed that anything was going on. By the same token, the most essential act of salvation on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis is found in the act of eating and drinking – the reception of the Eucharist. It is an act so simple that, in Orthodoxy, even an infant shares in…